William Jelani Cobb

He specializes in post-Civil War African American history, 20th-century American politics and the history of the Cold War. He is also a contributing writer for Essence magazine, an essayist and fiction writer and the author of To The Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic as well as The Devil & Dave Chappelle and Other Essays. He is editor of The Essential Harold Cruse: A Reader, which was listed as a 2002 Notable Book of The Year by Black Issues Book Review.

Born and raised in Queens, NY, he was educated at Jamaica High School, Howard University and Rutgers University where he received his doctorate in American History.

Dr. Cobb's forthcoming monograph Antidote to Revolution: African American Anticommunism and the Struggle for Civil Rights, 1931-1957 examines the nexus of the two dominant themes of American politics in the 20th century: the quest for racial democracy and the state's opposition to Communism.

His reviews and essays have appeared in The Washington Post, Emerge, The Progressive, The Washington City Paper, ONE Magazine, and Alternet.org. He has contributed to a number of anthologies including In Defense of Mumia, Testimony, Mending the World and Beats, Rhymes and Life. He has also been a featured commentator on National Public Radio and a number of other national broadcast outlets.

Dr. Cobb has been the recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright and Ford Foundation.

Dr. Cobb is The Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism at Columbia University, Dr. Cobb was previously an associate professor of history and director of the Institute for African American Studies at the University of Connecticut. Since 2015, he has been a staff writer at The New Yorker.